The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [92]
“You were Araceli Goldberg’s attending physician.”
“Yes. As I’ve already explained, I was a young man then. She was a trauma casualty. When I was called in, the woman was dying, probably comatose. I delivered her child, probably by cesarean section, and that was the extent of my involvement. She wasn’t my patient.”
“She was when you delivered the girl.”
“A girl? If you say so. Still, the record of my intervention was attached to her file.” He checked his watch, although there was a large digital clock on the opposite wall. “How time flies! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must do a round of the wards.”
Another lie. Dr. Hulman had chosen paper pushing over poking at abused flesh a decade earlier. “Did Araceli name the father? Did she ask you to notify anyone? Did you take notes?” Romero had remarked that Dr. Hulman had the annoying habit of taking copious notes at meetings or when attending patient reviews on small notebooks he always carried with him, to the chagrin of his secretary, who had to transcribe his spidery longhand. whatever doubt he had about Hulman keeping notes of Araceli’s delivery evaporated. As soon as Nikola mentioned notes, Dr. Hulman had darted a nervous glance to a tall safe supporting a pot with an artificial plant.
“I’ve told you, I don’t remember. For crying out loud! It’s over twenty-five years ago. What do you think I am? A computer?”
I must be getting old. He’d planned to grow calmer with the years, but his emotions only ran hotter with the extra mileage. In the past, Nikola would stoically endure uncooperative subjects and coax them into surrendering whatever information they may have had. Of late, his capacity had shrunk to a point where he bored of the game with surprising alacrity. He stifled a yawn and ran a tired glance over the impersonal office, the safe, the false plant, and the pristine medical textbooks that lined the shelves and were probably never consulted.
When Nikola was a child, his father would take him to an old bookshop in Chicago. There he would leave the boy to roam through dusty bookshelves while he disappeared to do “research” with Mrs. Gibbs, the owner, on the upper floor. About two hours later, Nikola’s father would descend a spiral staircase, at times freshly showered. Nikola suspected his father’s “research” might have something to do with water, but he’d never asked.
During his waiting periods, the attendant, Vito—a small old man with a florid face—would suggest a book or an illustrated tale. Vito would complain about the waning habit of reading. Customers, eager to flaunt their cultural prowess, would fill their bookcases with yards of books with correctly colored spines to match the decor. A new fashion, Vito had confided in whispers redolent of cheap booze, was to sell only the book spines pasted to a board. Lighter and more manageable. Nikola sighed and snapped back from his reverie, still wondering if the medical tracts on the gleaming wood shelves had any pages attached to their covers. “No, Dr. Hulman. I think you are a liar, and a bungling one at that.”
“How dare you?” Hulman reached under his desk, his face set.
Nikola didn’t move or try to stop his call for help or react when he felt the door opening at his back. He stared into Dr. Hulman’s slowly widening eyes, intent on the sudden flash of fear scuttling across his irises.
The door closed.
A huge black mass clouded Nikola’s peripheral vision as Sergeant Cox, clad in regulation body armor, approached the desk. At his back, another officer would be blocking the door.
“Where were we? Ah, yes: